Wanting to expand on still life work and working with flash & ambient lighting I wanted to try and photograph a Car.
Wanting an urban setting but one that still showed light, planned to light the car using 2 speedlites I had access to.
Wanting a large depth-of-field to keep everything in focus, chose an aperture of f/11 and an ISO of 100 to retain the best image quality. I placed my camera on a tripod and metering for the sky needed a 0.8 second long exposure. I then assessed image to see where to place my speedlites.
ISO 100 f/11 0.8sec 24mm
I positioned the light in TTL mode to camera right, parallel to the front of the car and placed it high on a light stand facing down. I did this to light the top hood of the car and also to try and light the inside slightly.
Here I find the composition is off, as the car isn't filling the frame it makes it seem small. The hard light from a reflector bowl is creating a pool of light on the floor in which the car casts are hard shadow.
I repositioned the car to a more appealing position and took anothe test show.
Seeing the car was reasonably lit all over I then took a test shot without the flash to see how the ambient light was hitting the car.
With flash
Without flash
ISO 100 f/11 1/3sec 31mm
Though the car in underexposed the majority of the image is still being lit with ambient light.
I increased my shutter speed by 2/3rd stops, now being at 1/3rd of a second.
Adding a the flash back in resulted in this image.
I like the underexposed background and the lighting on the car however the side of the car is a little too underexposed so I wanted to add a second light.
I attached a softbox to a second light, also in TTL mode and asked a friend to hold the light in various positions while i triggered the camera. Having smoeone there to help made the process go a lot quicker as I could see the results instantly and direct changes
Shadow on fence
Still a shadow on fence
Shadow cast on ground
The first image you can see the very hard shadow being cast on the fence. Though a soft box is attached to create a greater spread of light without stepping too far back from the car, relative to the car the soft box is very small creating hard light.
I asked to move the light higher and angle it down slightly, you can see the shadow is a little better. And finally, the third image, angling the light downwards even more gets rid of the shadow completely while light the side of the car.
Happy with the light I finally gave a wider angle to allow for any cropping that may need to occur and take the shot.
A difficulty I faced was the setting sun. Each minute passing the light was dropping fasting and faster with my final image being taken at a 2 second long exposure.
Overall I'm happy with the final image however circumstances on the day, namely my friend and the temperature at nightfall seemingly disagreeing with each other very loudly caused me to be rushed. Ideally I would have also had a 3rd light which I would have placed around the back of the car to produce a rim light helping to separate it from the dark background.
Ideally a light setup something like this